1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless mesh network. More particularly, the present invention relates to a control message processing method in a wireless mesh network which can minimize unnecessary latency time or overhead occurring between multi-hop nodes.
2. Description of Related Art
A wireless network connection technology overcomes a limitation of a wired connection, which requires a terminal to be connected via a wire, and provides a ubiquitous network technology that can connect to a network at any time and any place. It is assumed that the ubiquitous network technology, which will be widely developed in the near future, will combine wired/wireless network technologies together and provide users with communication functionality without a limitation of a time and a place.
A wireless mesh network technology currently appears to be one of most appropriate network technologies. The wireless mesh network technology is already a developed network structure that interoperates over various existing wireless connection technologies and has been widely used to provide users with a wireless connection solution. Since the wireless mesh network technology has the advantages of the self-configuring and self-healing features of an ad-hoc network, the wireless mesh network technology can quickly build a network at a lower cost.
In comparison with a point-to-point communication and a point-to-multipoint communication of existing wireless communications, the wireless mesh network technology has the advantages of a reliable network and the expandability of a wireless network due to the wireless mesh network technology having a wired mesh type structure of a wired mesh type network in a wireless network. The wireless mesh network technology may be widely used in various fields such as next generation mobile communication, home networking, and special purpose networking used for public safety.
Various research is performed to build an enhanced mesh network in both academic and business fields.
However, in the wireless mesh network, a control message is required to flood when a medium access control (MAC) address of the destination node is required to acquire for communication between the multi hops, and also when a routing path to the destination node is required.
Even with the above mentioned advantages of the wireless mesh network, the wireless mesh network is required to acquire the MAC address of a destination node and build a routing path to the destination node for communication between multi-hop nodes, thus, complexity and inefficiency occur due to a feature of the wireless mesh network configured in multi-hops. The unnecessary latency time and overhead occurs due to a control message being flooded, which is generated to request the MAC address of the destination node and the routing path to the destination node.
Accordingly, there is a need for a control message processing method in a wireless mesh network which can minimize unnecessary latency time or overhead occurring between multi-hop nodes.